Borderlands 3 Gameplay Reveal Introduces Several New Features And Modes

Today saw the gameplay reveal for Borderlands 3, a fan favorite looter shooter coming soon from developers Gearbox Software. During the hour long reveal, fans were greeted with a few new areas in the game including Sanctuary 3(don’t ask about Sanctuary 2) , a new hub featuring some of your favorite classic Borderlands characters.

The gameplay reveal followed a few locations including a tutorial featuring miniboss Shiv and another area featuring the boss Mouthpiece, a radio head that pollutes the airwaves with word of the Children of The Vault, a cult led by The Calypso twins. The Calypso twins are a pair of loudmouth cult leaders that have Bandits and lowlifes alike ready to follow their every command. The twins have a very charismatic and oddly cheery tone to them based on early gameplay footage and one could even argue that they poke fun at professional streamers.

Once the hour long event concluded several hundred streamers took to the internet to show off gameplay of the upcoming shooter. What makes this marketing technique from Gearbox so different is that each Borderlands 3 stream features a special extension for Twitch that rewards players and viewers for researching loot and exploring all possible types of play styles. Players would often be rewarded with a chest that contained exclusive items for the base game when it comes out.

Based on first viewer impressions, Borderlands 3 looks like a massive success for the series. Throughout the hour long event we got a lot of positive news for fans of past games including the new ability to slide, the ability to switch the abilities of some guns, a plethora of new weapon types, and a new feature that Gearbox is calling “loot instancing”.

Loot Instancing seems like a game changer for the way that players experience multiple playthroughs of Borderlands 3. As a big fan I have played through Borderlands 2 several times to unlock the potential of each character and score some serious loot but am constantly dragged down by going through several long sequences that I have seen multiple times so that’s where my friend came in handy. My friend, usually a maxed out character, would help cheese areas and I would collect the loot, but with Loot Instancing both parties, whether they’re maxed or new, can get guns that are their respective levels.

According to Randy Pitchford, fans of the original mode can go back to cheesing with their newbie friends on a Classic Mode.

It was also mentioned by Randy that current plans of a post launch DLC is coming and it’s shaping up to be the best one yet:

/9 Our post launch plans are in flux as we are finishing the main game, but we have committed to a robust season pass that I am confident will be measurable later as an even better value proposition than Borderlands 2, which is the reigning gold standard for season pass value.